


One Life to Ascend To

by rageprufrock



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-28
Updated: 2013-06-28
Packaged: 2017-12-16 12:14:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/861923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rageprufrock/pseuds/rageprufrock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I can't believe he ascended the baby," Dr. Kavanagh says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Despite Rodney's snide comments about how  _of course_  John would be the one to discover the Ancient equivalent of television and bring about the decay of all possible scientific efficiency on Atlantis, John's suddenly everybody's best friend for having figured out that the white, spherical orbs that appear when you touch the pale square on the night tables makes pictures and noise.

"Does anybody find it strange that they're speaking English?" Kavanagh asks once John identifies what must be the big-screen version of the Ancient television--a large, white bubble that hangs suspended in one of the common rooms. 

"It's one of those things I've decided not to think about," John says brightly, and pages through the channels with his mind, which is basically the only thing cooler than the fact that it takes him nearly ten minutes at a channel per second to reach a repeat show on Atlantis' pre-recorded tape loop.  "Oh, hey," John says, pausing at a channel showing what might be a sport, "lookie."

They do--for all of five minutes before community vote in the room decides that whatever "sport" it is they're watching must be some bizarre combination of competitive yoga, underwater ballet, and fencing and not even John's desperate enough to watch it any longer. 

The novelty of it wears off after a while, and John doesn't think about the Ancient television for almost a week, what with renewed Wraith attacks and being stabbed in the arm and forced into what he  _swears_  was a satin nightgown for diplomatic talks on a planet that eventually traded them hundreds of kilos of what might as well be cocaine it's such strong coffee and an ornamental root carved to look like a penis.  John hung it at Rodney's work station in the lab and then Rodney turned off his hot water for three days but it was totally worth it. 

But then Caldwell and the Daedelus roll into the Pegasus galaxy again and the whole base goes on stand down for two weeks while new personnel are familiarized with the compound and senior staff members stepping down cry all over each other. 

"There's a scarily high percentage of burnout in the science teams," Rodney says, entire body resonating into another dimension, hands clasped around his coffee cup. 

"You think that has anything to do with the white board you have with tick marks for every time you make somebody cry?" John asks sarcastically. 

"Are there three of you?" Rodney asks, sincere and with his eyes huge. 

John takes the coffee away from him.  "Okay, I'm cutting you off for real this time," he says. 

He does--but it takes round-the-clock shifts of guards around the storage room they're keeping the foodstuffs, military personnel with engineering backgrounds and personal grudges and who owe John big time. 

"Oh my God, I'm shaking, my hands are shaking," Rodney whines, and puts them in John's face.  "Look at them--shaking shaking shaking." 

John's heard about Rodney coming off the Wraith enzyme and he's seriously tempted to consult Beckett for help or backup or maybe some meds--the kind of thing that would knock out cattle, because Rodney's bouncing off every wall in Atlantis, and God bless him, but John is going to give Rodney a tracheotomy through his nose if he doesn't shut the hell up and let John get on with weapons inventory.

The third day of this, John puts Lorne in command--"But, sir--" Lorne says, looking wronged; "I know, Lorne, I'm sorry, too," John answers grimly--and finds Rodney in the labs trying to build a TARDIS out of abandoned Ancient sex toy pieces.  (It wouldn't be in pieces, either, if Rodney wasn't such a prude and just enjoyed it when things started vibrating all friendly-like.  John knows because everybody knows; Zelenka has film he's distributing for free, claiming it's good for his soul.) 

"You know what'll calm you down?" John says soothingly, steering Rodney to the common room.  "Some nice, weird Ancient TV."

*

Three hours later, John's kind of concerned that Rodney's gone from insane to relaxed to a vegetative state.

John had flipped through news channels, which had been grimly depressing if morbidly fascinating; music videos, which Rodney vetoed immediately on account of their living some terrible, MTV Real World: Pegasus Galaxy season; and everything from cooking shows to home shopping networks to Atlantis children's programming.  Most of it was interesting--after all, the anthropologists had been babbling about what an awesome source of research the programs had been since John had found them, thus further cementing his position of Lord King Hot Ass of Atlantis, using Rodney's words, not John's--some of it was lame, and the children's shows were just depressing, since apparently the targeted age group was one year to twenty-four months and puppets were singing songs about non-linear geometry.

And then John flips onto a show where a very attractive, buxom blonde Ancient was kissing an equally dashing tall, dark, and handsome Ancient and ding ding ding, we have a winner.

John figures Rodney's enthralled by the combination of his favorite things in the word: blondes and particle physics.  John's just weirded out enough by the use of advanced science as sex talk to admit to himself that the guy is kind of cute and lets Rodney moan all over himself watching them have soft-focus-lens sex in a white and tan room.

"This set-up seems kind of familiar," John says suspiciously, but Rodney shushes him, eyes big.

"She's talking about  _Heisenberg,_ " Rodney moans.

John rolls his eyes.  "And he could make a terrible joke about fluid dynamics any minute now--Rodney, I mean it, this seems really familiar."

Then the blonde, who they discover is called Miyatha, says, "Themero, there is a baby--our baby, and I'll do whatever it takes to protect it.  I hoped you would feel the same way."

Themero, face blank with post-coital shock, says back, "A baby."

"If I go to prison, our child will be taken away to be fostered by the elders, taken away from me, and I won't let that happen," Miyatha pleads, taking Themero's hands and pressing them to her artfully-draped bosom.  "Please help me."

"Miyatha, my love, I will do everything I can but--" Themero starts, and the music in the background swells.

"Then promise me--promise me you won't tell anyone about our baby and that you will help me escape from Atlantis," Miyatha demands, and the screen fades to black on a shot of Themero's face, torn with indecision and possibly love.

John snaps his fingers and points at the screen.  "Soap operas," John says triumphantly.

"Oh my God," Rodney says, mouth half-open, "I wonder what he  _does_."

*

Rodney harangues John until he finds the TV Guide channel, and Rodney spends a painstaking hour slowly reading the scrolling show titles until he finds the words "Miyatha" and "Themero" buried in the babble and says, "Hah!" though his success is short-lived since now he has to wait another revolution before finding what the actual name of the show is and when it's on again.

"One Life to Ascend to," Rodney says, squinting at the screen.   

"It is  _not_  called that," John argues. 

"It  _so is_ ," Rodney says.  "Can  _you_  read Ancient?" 

John's learned just enough so that he can write GOATFUCKER in the Ancient form of script and make it look enough like a flower that Rodney just thinks somebody's got a crush on him when he finds all those weird post-its on his laptop.  He scowls and says, "No, but Elizabeth can," and raises his hand to his comm unit. 

"Oh, it's on," Rodney says, flipping the channels back to whatever tape stream was playing--that show, and glaring.  "There's another episode on in half an hour--we'll see whose right  _then_." 

John has this weird feeling that this whole thing can only end in tragedy, but that's never stopped him from diving in headfirst anyway: dating men, joining the Air Force while still dating men, coming to Atlantis, etc. etc. etc. 

It must be a slow day or Elizabeth's dodging Caldwell's persistent affections again because she shows up fives minutes later like she's actually  _glad_  to see them and Zelenka--of course, John thinks with an indulgent smile, not because he's like, Atlantis' resident yenta or anything but because it's kind of cute--tagging along, hair wild and uncombed. 

"Now what's this about a translation dispute," she says, smiling and settling in on one of the white loveseats in the common room and tugs one of her legs beneath herself.  Zelenka sits down as far away as possible from her while still on the same couch and John resists the urge to sigh at him and roll his eyes. 

"Is it  _really_  a translation dispute if one of the involved parties cannot  _read_  said disputed passage?" Rodney asks sarcastically. 

"It is if you're translating it One Life to Ascend to," John says snottily. 

Elizabeth raises one eyebrow.  "You're joking," she laughs. 

And then the opening bars of the show's theme play and Rodney is transfixed as the blond sashays onto the screen, her eyes fierce and proud, her hands occupied with furious typing on an Ancient console that even  _John_  knows is fake.  Then artistic shots of supporting characters: Themero next, and then a litany of attractive, unnaturally well-kempt people, finally to crescendo in a darkly lit image of Miyatha and Themero locked in a tenuous embrace. 

"Maybe she'll talk about Zed PMs," Rodney says longingly.

Everybody in the room looks at him but refrains from saying anything, which John figures is really for the best.

Zelenka, on the other couch, seems halfway between exploding from the sheer joy of proximity to Elizabeth and expiring from his own high expectations.  It's cute and all, but John's not into asphyxiation, auto-erotic or otherwise, so John keeps an eye on him.

"I'm as horrified as you are, John," Elizabeth says as a weirdly bland woman bursts onto the screen to advertise some technological device that has Rodney quivering, though John knows for  _fact_ modern technology doesn't know enough about fusion for it to be useful to them in any way, "but I'm afraid it  _does_  say One Life to Ascend to."

"Hah!" Rodney exclaims, and then retreats back into his catatonic state.

"That's just so wrong," John says after a pause.

"Why wrong?" Zelenka finally asks, and it all comes out in a rush, like since he's discovered Elizabeth's a  _girl_  he doesn't know what to do with the information.

"One Life to Live," John says simply, and when Zelenka continues to look at him blankly, John sighs and says, "It's this horrible television show in America.  It's called a soap opera, and there're these rich, impossibly beautiful people who do stupid, melodramatic things all the time."

"Is that not like all of your television?" Zelenka asks, confused.

Rodney mumbles something about  _The X-Files_  under his breath but then the show comes back on and leans forward as Miyatha sashays onto the scene.

"Actually," John tries to argue, and then pauses at Zelenka's blank expression before sighing and saying, "Well, okay, yeah, sort of."

*

By late afternoon, there's an unofficial channel guide posted to the Atlantis BBS, and anybody with an ATA gene is stalked and harassed until they find another Ancient television to turn on--most of the programs are incomprehensible enough that the only true couch potatoes are the anthropologists.  But the universality of bad soap operas makes One Life to Ascend To an instant hit, and at midnight, when John checks his email for the last time before crashing out, he finds that somebody's sent out a request for an episode summary.  John rolls his eyes and goes to bed.

*

When John wakes up at six thirty and checks his email, there are six emails telling the anonymous mailer asking for a summary she or he is a moron; there are thirty-six pointing to the new BBS thread created specifically for discussion of One Life to Ascend To. 

John says, "Oh, for God's sake," and goes to the morning meeting.  They talk about the new botany labs discovered on the third L-deck and debate the relative merits of an in-house source of food weighed against the potential energy drain, and after a lot of shouting and hand-waving in a botanists v. Rodney fight that the botanists ultimately win--the victors streak out of the meeting room to their shiny new toy while Rodney punches their access codes into the power grid, sulking until John reminds him that if everything works out, maybe they can make their own chocolate. 

"Ooo--chocolate," Rodney coos, starry eyed. 

Elizabeth hides her smile behind her hand as Teyla bites back a giggle.  Zelenka touches a binder to his lips and John doesn't bother to do any of that, just laughs because this is one of those things John didn't have on Earth, that he's grateful for on Atlantis. 

"Cake," he says, egging Rodney on. 

" _Cake_ ," Rodney gasps. 

" _Lava_ cake," John adds. 

"Oh my  _God_ ," Rodney moans extravagantly, and there're two red spots on his cheeks.  Teyla finally can't hold it in and a giggle bursts out of Elizabeth before she wave her hands and says: 

"Okay, okay, business, getting down to business." 

Rodney says one more time, "Cake!" giving John a sideways grin before he switches into work mode, all business and extra prickly.  But there's a spring in his sarcasm that carries through the rest of the meeting and no matter how many times John reminds himself he's being a moron, he can't help but find it completely cute. 

Evening staff is less happy.  Two marines and a marine biologist get trapped in a sudden collapse in the easternmost arm of the city, and John skips the meeting to wade through icy water and broken metal beams to help pull Fishman and Janson and Dr. Hollins out of the wreck of dead wires.  The eastern half of the city is blacked out to keep from electrocuting all of them and they tramp back to the nearest transporter, dripping wet and cursing 10,000-year-old architecture in the glittering Atlantis dark. 

John spends dinner trapped in the infirmary as Carson makes certain for the four billionth time that he does not have pneumonia or some sort of Atlantean, waterborne parasite.  Carson decides he and Fishman and Janson and Hollins have to have a sleepover in the med bay despite John's ardent protests. 

"I hate the med bay," Fishman says.  "Creeps me out." 

"It's not so bad," John soldiers on, and wonders if there's a television in this room just as a white orb dips out of the ceiling and Janson says, all grins:

"Man, sweet."

Somehow, they end up watching an all-night marathon of One Life to Ascend To and John and Janson and Fishman and Hollins alternately laugh and groan as Miyatha and Themero plan her great escape from Atlantis.  Janson actually shouts, "Oh, shit!  No!" as she drifts helplessly off into the ocean around Atlantis, flashing a tragic backward wave to Themero--bravely staid on an anonymous dock. 

By morning, the OLtAT BBS has exploded.

*

"Does anybody else find this vaguely disturbing?" John asks a few days later, leaning over Rodney's shoulder. 

"Shh," Rodney mutters, eyes barely flickering to the side to register John's arrival in the labs.  "I'm very, very, very busy." 

"You're making a  _chart_ ," John complains, starting to feel a little neglected. 

John knows that Rodney's been busy.  Rodney's been so busy he hasn't even taken up John's offers to go check on the budding cacao plants, or his suggestions to play with newly discovered experimental laser guns on a few of the puddlejumpers found in the repair shop.  Rodney hasn't even joined John in a manly search for the porno district of Atlantis, because John and Rodney came to an agreement ages ago that regardless how advanced a culture, pornography isn't something you grow out of--higher order of being or not.  Rodney's all but ignored him for a week, tinkering endlessly in the labs and junking out on One Life to Ascend To when he's not. 

"It's a very important chart," Rodney says, exasperated, giving John a sideways look.

"It's a flow chart for One Life to Ascend To," John says sourly.  He tries to keep the pout out of his voice, but he knows he's failed miserably; he's about to say something stupid like, "Ever since I got you that TV, you haven't paid any attention to me," so John figures that running away is the better part of valor and starts looking for escape routes.

"In the interest if quieting the masses," Rodney mutters, fingers flying over the keyboard, "yes, I am making a flowchart to follow some of the major plot twists and characters so I can stop answering six hundred thousand private messages asking me what happened the last episode."  He gives John a glance.  "What are  _you_  doing?"

In theory, John is supposed to be reviewing offworld reports, but that's what Lorne's for. 

"I'm monitoring your use of valuable resources," John says glibly. 

"You're making Lorne read reports, aren't you?" Rodney accuses 

"I have no idea what you're talking about," John says sweetly.  

Rodney might be an instant convert but by and large, the base is attempting not to look like the horrible addicts they are--although John feels they might be more convincing if the city didn't effectively become a dead zone at half past four in the afternoon when the next episode of One Life to Ascend To scrolled onto the television orbs. 

"You're really not watching?" Zelenka asks later that night at dinner, giving John a curious look. 

"As ranking military officer on Atlantis I think I have a few more pressing engagements than watching bad soap operas filled with totally uninteresting and painfully unrealistic plotlines," John snaps.  Zelenka raises an eyebrow at him and John thinks, oh crap, he knows! 

"Actually, reason Rodney likes it so much is Helion, who--" Zelenka says. 

"Shut up!" Rodney snaps, face flushing. 

Normally, John would push, but then again, he can only listen to Rodney wax poetic about busty blondes for so long before the lizard brain fourteen year old in him gets jealous and wants to draw a penis and write YOU SUCK on Rodney's desk.

*

By the fourth week, nobody's even pretending not to watch it and the twisted love of Miyatha and Themero are on everybody's lips. 

"I can't believe he ascended the baby," Dr. Kavanagh says. 

"It was the best he could do for the kid!" Simpson argues.  "Would you have wanted your child raised by Carren?"  

Kavanagh snorts.  "Well, nobody's put a ban on McKay reproducing yet…" 

"That doesn't mean there shouldn't be one," Zelenka jumps in. 

"I am  _right here_ ," Rodney snaps. 

All three scientists roll their eyes, sighing.  Zelenka says, "And we all know only reason you like show is for love affair of Dr. Noreen and Helion--" 

"Shut up shut up shut up!" Rodney says, high-pitched, darting nervous glances at John. 

"Helion?" John asks lazily from the end of the table.   

Simpson starts giggling hysterically and Zelenka almost gets a whole syllable out before Rodney all but tackles him, which is about when John decides he has  _got_  to see what this is all about.

*

Rodney's as subtle as a tornado, so John knows for sure there're games afoot when Rodney does his damndest the following week to make certain John is detained during the four thirty runs of One Life to Ascend To, which just reinforces John's desire to know what the hell is going on and also leads him to the discover of Ancient mind control TiVo, which he's not telling anybody about until he's seen who this Helion character is. 

So at three a.m. after suffering through the physics department's weekly game of Risk--"Colonel Sheppard is on my team!" and "Zelenka, you dirty, dirty cheat!" and "There are  _no teams_  in Risk!"--John stumbled back to his quarters and just barely remembered to flick on his orb. 

He went through the menus of Ancient mind control TiVo--which, after the puddlejumpers and Ancient warships, was basically the  _coolest thing ever_ \--and pulled up the four episodes of One Life to Ascend To Rodney had prevented him from seeing and kicked back, setting the lock on his door and soundproofing his walls for maximum stealth. 

Helion finally showed up at the very end of the first episode, bedecked in the Ancients' military uniform and scowling in the pounding rain, standing solemnly at the end of one of the docks, dark hair pasted to a pale forehead and pale eyes sparking with irritation. 

Helion didn't really seem like Rodney's type, John thought, and that was discounting the fact that, oh, right,  _Helion was a guy_. 

"You have got to be kidding me," John muttered, and fast-forwarded through Miyatha's descension with her baby and subsequent slap-fight with Miyutha, her evil twin sister until John saw Helion slink onto the scene again, slouching at a generic conference table and smirking at a roomful of military leaders. 

"Major Argent," one of the commanders said through gritted teeth. 

"Sir," Helion said mildly. 

"If you weren't such a decorated pilot I'd bust you to Terranto," another one barked, leaping out of his seat, and John started having some seriously uncomfortable flashbacks to Afghanistan. 

"Cerrto, sit down," the first commander, cursed with a head of bright orange curls, snapped, and glaring at Helion said, "The problem of course,  _is_ that you're the best--" Helion dipped his head graciously, and John said: 

"Oh, oh, that's not good.  They  _hate_  it when you do that." 

"--and we can't afford to lose you, arrogant son of a bitch or not," the commander finished with a disgusted sneer before brightening to say, "Of course, we have arranged a new, more appropriate posting for you." 

Helion tensed.  "Sir?" 

And that's when John hears high-pitched bitching in the background grow ever louder, until a harried woman with dirty-blond hair and red cheeks stalks into the room, wearing the pale robes marking her as a government scientist, clutching a portable computer and clearly pissed she was summoned out of her probably completely important and unimaginably difficult-to-understand work. 

"Dr. Noreen, we're so glad you could join us," another of the commanders says, smiling. 

"I can only assume you've finally fulfilled my request for a personal guard?  I am, after all, only the singular most important person in the war effort," she snaps, and wheels around when she notices Major Helion, saying, "Oh," in a much squeakier tone of voice.  "It's you." 

"Oh  _no_ ," Helion moans. 

"Oh yes," the commander tells him, beaming.

"Oh  _wait_ ," Dr. Noreen pleads, coloring.

"Good luck, Major Helion," the orange-haired commander says, and Helion is left gap-jawed and horrified as the orb goes black and the credits start rolling.

John stares at the darkened screen for a long, long time before he burst into laughter.

*

At a little past four the next day, John sends Rodney an email.  It reads: 

> > > To: r.mckay  
> From: j.sheppard  
> Subject: one life to ascend to
>>> 
>>> so i finally saw this major Helion you're so into. 

Rodney writes back:

> > > To: j.sheppard  
> From: r.mckay  
> Subject: re: one life to ascend to
>>> 
>>> If you're just going to have one of your traditional, American, homophobic freakouts I think it's in both of our interests to point out that (a) I am clear on the other side of the city and although we both know I'm not a terribly strong runner I can be very fast when properly motivated, and if you're coming after me with your big military gay bashing bat, I think it would qualify, (b) my being "into" Major Helion could very well be just a rational respect for his military prowess and his ability to fly puddlejumpers without smashing them into a billion little pieces every time we're offworld and then yelling at Dr. Noreen about fixing them slower than expected but still faster than humanly possible and (c) please don't hate me.  I blame Zelenka.
>>> 
>>> God, do you even know what the shift key  _is?_  

When John picks himself up off of the floor from laughing, he writes: 

> > > To: r.mckay  
> From: j.sheppard  
> Subject: re: re: one life to ascend to
>>> 
>>> actually, i was just going to say that dr. noreen was kind of cute.
>>> 
>>> what are you doing at four thirty?

Rodney answers: 

> > > To: j.sheppard  
> From: r.mckay  
> Subject: re: re: re: one life to ascend to
>>> 
>>> Oh, very nice!  Just rub my face in the fact that you're only interested in women!  And I don't think I want to  _tell_  you what I'm doing at four thirty in case you're just going to take advantage of knowing my location to come after me with your bat! 

And adds: 

> > > To: j.sheppard  
> From: r.mckay  
> Subject: re: re: re: one life to ascend to
>>> 
>>> Wait.  Or did you--?

And adds:

> > > To: j.sheppard  
> From: r.mckay  
> Subject: re: re: re: one life to ascend to
>>> 
>>> Oh.   _Oh_.  Okay.  Yeah, um.

And adds:

> > > To: j.sheppard  
> From: r.mckay  
> Subject: re: re: re: one life to ascend to 
>>> 
>>> !!! 
>>> 
>>> You never said anything!

And adds:

> > > To: j.sheppard  
> From: r.mckay  
> Subject: re: re: re: one life to ascend to
>>> 
>>> I'll be there at four thirty.  Jerk.

John grins, and before he shuts off his laptop, writes: 

> > > To: r.mckay  
> From: j.sheppard  
> Subject: re: re: re: re: one life to ascend to
>>> 
>>> great and when you get here, i can show you the ancient tivo. 

John figures it's probably impossible, but he thinks he can hear Rodney's shrieking all the way from the physics lab and thinks, it must be love, when he can't help but find that likeable, too.


	2. Chapter 2

Dr. Laila Noreen first met Major Argent Helion in the Eighth Level; she was very inebriated and he was very pretty in all the sparkling club lights, blue and shining with watery shadows and Laila thought she'd been  _in love_  until he'd leaned over to her at the bar and said, "Hey, your friend is kind of hot--wanna give me her dial?"   
  
In retrospect, Laila will admit that punching him in the face might have been overkill, but at the time, sobbing in the municipal police office, it had seemed only right that Helion had a rapidly-swelling eye for his heartless crushing of her fledgling love for him. And then she'd woken up with the worst hangover ever and her sense of reality again and decided she would never, never, never drink or interact with men again.  
  
Luckily, he got transferred into her section, was brilliant with numbers, played with his weapon constantly, cocky and even more attractive sober, and had a tendency of pushing her out of the way and getting shot in her stead. Laila couldn't decide if it was kind of charming or just really irritating.  
  
This is no different. "I'm getting really sick of this," Laila snarls.  
  
Helion scowls at her. "Shut--up--!" he gasps, and tries to push her away. "Get out of here!"  
  
"Oh, right, and leave you behind so your ex-lovers can come after me with tasers!" she snaps, and presses her hand to the bleeding wound in his thigh--just shy of his femoral artery and she can't help but think, thank the ancestors, thank the ancestors. "No thanks! I'd take shot to death by the enemy over beaten to death with decorative satchels of Major Helion's many, many bedroom conquests anyday."  
  
"They aren't going to--oh,  _ow_ \--shoot you," Helion manages through gritted teeth.  
  
Laila knows exactly what they will do: strap her down to a machine, attach electrodes to her brain, and drain out everything they need: all the information about the program, all her knowledge, all the secrets she keeps for the city--and then they'll have Atlantica and she'll be a broken up shell and Helion will  _still_  be dead, which is why she should totally run away.  
  
She pulls him a little closer to her and drags them more deeply into the shadows of the abandoned hall. "I'm not letting you get away with this," she hisses. "This is reckless endangerment of me--the single most important person to the war effort--and I will see to it that you get punished and demoted and have your paycheck docked."  
  
"Noreen--"  
  
"Shut up!" she snaps. "Save it for your discipline hearing," she tells him more softly, and closes her eyes.  
  
\----  
  
Rodney gapes at the screen, eyes huge and horrified.  
  
"That--"  
  
John winces.  
  
"Um," he says, edging out of his seat. "Rodney."  
  
"No  _way,_ " Rodney whines, turning to John and grabbing his arm. Trapped. "There's  _no way._ "  
  
"I already looked, okay?" John complains.   
  
"You didn't look  _enough,_ " Rodney insists, desperate.  
  
"I looked a  _lot_ ," John says apologetically. "I'm pretty sure Ancient TiVo is more reliable than even our TiVo and the database swears that this was the last episode made."  
  
Rodney stares sadly at the closing credits. "My life is so hard."  
  
"Well," John says, upbeat. "This just means you can make up your own ending."  
  
John doesn't know it yet, but he's totally going to regret that.


	3. Chapter 3

When Helion woke up, it was to the abrasive lights of an infirmary, one he recognized from many other stays--though those were primarily for somewhat embarrassing social diseases. He blinked slowly and as parts of his body started to register, he realized everything hurt: top of his head to his toes.  
  
"It's about time."  
  
Helion blinked, once, twice, and then turned to his side, following Noreen's voice.  
  
She was perfectly poised, as usual, blond hair stylishly fanned around her lush face, and her expression was elegant as she sat by his bedside, a handheld in her lap, fingers flying over crystalline keys solving the mysteries of the very universe_  
  
"Rodney what--that's a word processor."  
  
"No, it's not," Rodney lied. "I'm coding."  
  
John narrowed his eyes. "In what?"  
  
"…C++," Rodney said, rapidly hitting CTRL+S and trying to shut the lid of his laptop. The only thing possibly more embarrassing than writing fanfiction for a show that hadn't excited in thousands of years was writing fanfiction for a show that hadn't existed for thousands of years and laying over his own personality on the main character and imagining Helion as a slightly more technological version of John--who probably didn't even know what C++ was.  
  
John stared at him intensely for a long time before his eyes flicked up, over Rodney's head, in terrible alarm, and Rodney instinctively ducked down--  
  
Which gave John just enough time to jerk the laptop away and pull it open to read out loud:  
  
"Even in the murky waters of his dreams he thought of Lai--oh my God, Rodney."  
  
"Give that back!" Rodney snapped, and reached for it even as John turned away, continuing:  
  
"Her smooth, too-honest face, her imperfect mouth, how she'd burrowed into his heart and taught him more about theoretical harmonics than he'd ever imagined any one person could--oh God, why don't you just masturbate on the keyboard, Rodney?"  
  
Rodney finally pulled the laptop away, scowling and barely resisting the urge to beat John about his unbearably attractive head with it--but reconsidered because (a) most of Atlantis' schematics and system designs (even the ad hoc ones) were loaded somewhere onto his harddrive (b) because there was valuable pornography hidden away in one of the subdrives that didn't deserve such cruel waste and (c) there were at least thirty-six people on the Atlantis OLtAT newsgroup waiting for this next chapter and Rodney loved nothing more than holding it over their heads like a tiny god.  
  
"It's none of your business," Rodney hissed.  
  
"It's a show! It's not even around anymore!" John argued. "It hasn't been around for like, a million years! Plus--who the hell says 'burrowed into his heart' anyway?" John demanded. "Major Helion is way too manly for that."  
  
Rodney rolled his eyes, clutching the laptop to his chest. "I am not getting into a characterization war with you, Colonel Sheppard," he said, and started to walk away.  
  
"It's defamation!" John called after him. "It's wrong!"  
  
Rodney cursed himself all the way back to his bedroom, where he finished up the section and posted it hatefully:  
  
Title: Love At Second Sight (pt 35/?)  
Rating: If you're not old enough to be reading this why are you on this mission?  
Summary: Given a second chance at life (and love!) Major Argent Helion finally stops taking a few things for granted.  
  
The third piece of feedback he got was this:  
  
To: rodney.mckay  
From: john.sheppard  
Re: love @ second sight  
  
seriously, would more sex help?


	4. Chapter 4

Riolaria had been at war as long as anybody can remember, and during Argent's childhood history lessons, he'd learned of the flourishing beauty of his world in spite of it--with the universe exploding around them. He'd read great books of literature from far-flung galaxies, studied timeless works of art, fingered the last remains of all broken worlds that had found their way into the Riolaria galleries by traders and stragglers, survivors who had heard of his world's great collections, their fierceness in defending them.  
  
Argent has always known war, and always known why he was fighting in it.  
  
-  
  
At 15, his half-brother betrothed him to a princess from Wellon, and when Argent had gone to meet with her, he'd walked into her chambers to see her beating a small child with a hand mirror and gone away from there. That night, over dinner, she'd smiled and held her utensils perfectly, with a matchless grace, her dark, smooth hair curling beautifully over her cheeks. She'd spoken of art and science and after the meal, when Argent requested an audience, she'd played beautifully on the many-keyed organ, and made harmonics that shook the walls, so beautiful he closed his eyes and almost believed it would be okay.  
  
"She's very beautiful, Argent, congratulations," his brother said to him.  
  
"She was beating her servant," Argent whispered. "He had to have been less than ten."  
  
His brother's face darkened, and he put a hand on Argent's shoulder. "An alliance between our worlds is invaluable, brother. We all have to fight."  
  
"How is this fighting?" Argent asked, and never got an answer.  
  
-  
  
At 15 and three days, Argent left Riolaria on a rattle-trap transport with three tax evaders and a drunken, whoring pilot. He pawned off anything worth money on Meso and lied on his forms while enlisting when he finally reached Atlantica. Argent knew he was too thin and too slight to look anywhere near 20, but nobody comes to the offices willingly anymore, and the woman at the terminal gives him a slight smile and some papers without asking any questions.  
  
"Have you thought about what you'd like to do in the forces?" she asks, touching her screen with flying fingers, so quickly it's even more beautiful than Wellon's princess and her hands dancing over the organ keys. "Which branch?"  
  
"I'm smart," he says immediately. "I already know how to fly."  
  
"Oh?" she asks, finally blinking her eyes at him from behind huge lenses that reflect the neon-blue of the computer screen. "Which kinds of craft? Hover? Rover? Fighter? Transport?"  
  
Argent's mouth goes dry, because this is different fighting than he's been prepared for, different than anything he's ever known. He was always a promise, a term on a contract, and the binds he's broken will make Riolaria ache, but he'll never shake the image of the mirror shattering on a child's shoulder, and he can't make it up any other way.  
  
He says, "Any of them. All of them."  
  
-  
  
10 years later, he meets Dr. Laila Noreen for the first time. She's four years his senior and at least twice as bad as everybody has claimed, and nursing his bruised face in the municipal police office on Atlantic, watching her weep drunkenly about how she's dedicated her entire life to science and how it's a terrible husband, he starts to feel a little bit bad for her.  
  
"And then this  _cosmic slut_  asked for someone else's dial!" she wails, waving her hand vaguely at Argent and weeping into a pile of digital directories.  
  
But only a very, very little bit, Argent promises himself_  
  
When the city gave a low, ringing chim, John saved and shut down the word processor immediately, calling up a security schematic of the city and putting an expression of supreme concentration on his face when Rodney burst into his quarters, red-cheeked and shivering with nervous energy.  
  
"Hi, Rodney, come right in," John drawled sarcastically.  
  
"No need for modesty: I've seen your penis and all your porn already." Rodney dismissed him with a wave of his hand and pulled a glare saying, "That bitch has done it again."  
  
John blinked. "You said you couldn't prove Simpson was the one who glued you to your chair," he said.  
  
Rodney colored. "No," he snapped. "But I will eventually--but I was talking about this bitch on the One Life newsgroup."  
  
John rolled his eyes. "What happened this time, Rodney? Kavanagh question your use of the serial comma again?"  
  
"The serial comma is an established--!"  
  
"Not in AP style, it isn't," John said, just to be contrary.  
  
"Are we writing for the Atlantis Daily Record?" Rodney demanded. "No! Serial comma! Oh my God--why am I arguing with you about this anyway? You don't even know how to hit the shift key in an email!"  
  
"That hurt me," John pouted. "Deep inside."  
  
Waving his hands in frustration, Rodney growled, "The point is! Somebody is upstaging me."  
  
"With serial commas?" John asked, and at Rodney's increasingly-red face, he held up his hands, saying, "Okay, okay. On the Ancient Booze Toob newsgroup, right? What, are they being a bigger drama queen than you are?"  
  
Rodney launched into a long and complicated whine about how nobody appreciated him for being a groundbreaking innovator and how his readership had all but abandoned ship as more and more poets crawled out of Atlantis' professional ranks and started posting their own masterpieces. Rodney's epic story (now at chapter 78/?) had been overshadowed by Parrish's (103/?) and both of them had been blown sheer out of the water by Miko and her filthy, filthy art pens. Eventually Rodney got frustrated trying to use words to describe the sexual positions she'd put Themero and Helion in ("Hey! Helion likes girls!" John argued; "Oh my God, would you just  _look?_ " Rodney complained) and shown John the post, which had made both of them speculative and a bit randy.  
  
"We still don't bend that way," Rodney gasped.  
  
"We made a good effort," John comforted him.  
  
"Yeah," Rodney said happily, cheeks flushed. "Oh, and whoever this twat is that's writing all this Helion backstory better watch out."  
  
John put his face in his pillow, and bit his lip as hard as he could.


End file.
